Princess Jasper is your typical rich spoiled brat until her father’s kingdom gets overthrown by Lord Buul, a deformed brother she never knew she had. Chained to a monstrous creature named Vork, she escapes with Vork’s aid. And with a motley band of misfits, that includes a boy trapped inside a steam-powered machine and a handsome pirate she knows she shouldn’t trust, Jasper must find a way to retake her father’s kingdom from the clutches of her tyrannical brother.

Fantasy meets steam in an epic battle of good vs. evil that resembled some of my favorite Anime, all the way down to the bizarre misfits and “OMG!” plot twists. All rolled up in timeless and age-old themes, both philosophical and political, that wholly relate to the modern day. Jason C. Conley’s The Kingdom of Vosh: The Chained Princess is, to put it mildly, an epic undertaking.

The oft-cheesy dialogue and extreme characterization is typical of Anime, and one could say a requirement for the genre, but which might be off-putting to the casual novel reader. There are some things that work in an animated film, or even in a graphic novel, that just doesn’t come out right when attempted in novel format—and vice versa. That being said, I personally like the Anime-ish feel that it gave, but I’ve been an Anime fan since the first day I watched Akira.

I also found the POV shifts irksome and even confusing. While the occasional switch from Jasper’s first-person POV to Buul’s third-person POV was an interesting experiment, I think it could have been handled a lot better. For one: section breaks (***) between the paragraphs where the shifts occur would’ve been nice. And second, it sometimes seemed that Jasper’s POV would sometimes border on the omniscient.

It could be that I was reading an ARC (and if so, it’d be nice if small presses would start putting “Advance Review Copy” somewhere on their, well, advanced review copies) and the problems I encountered with clunky POV shifts and a couple minor grammar snafus and typos that make grammar Nazis like me want to yell “Aw Seig Hell No!” won’t be present in the official finished copy. I hope so, because it’s a great story well worth its chance in the spotlight, and I would hate to see editorial problems (and easily fixable ones at that) get in the way of its success.

Best to read while listening to: the soundtrack to the Elder Scrolls series.

Why did you decide to become a writer, and when?I don’t know if it was such a conscious decision or not. It came out of necessity to bring this story out of my head! It kept bothering me. Like a pesky neighbor’s dog, it kept barking in my ear all night. So I had to shut it up and get it on paper. Luckily, it was interesting enough to get a few people’s attention!

I sensed a bit of Anime influence in The Kingdom of Vosh. How close to, or how far off, the mark am I on that?

Pretty close. Anime, comics, old serial action adventure movies from the 60’s, even videogames, they all played a part in influencing this story. Stuff like Ninja Scroll, Akira, or other over-the-top stories with wild characters and a damaged antagonist. Movies like Clash of the Titans, (the old one), or Sinbad, Jason and the Argonauts, The Wizard of Oz, anything concerning a grand quest that included crazy creatures and wild technology.

I also noticed some themes, and events, in the story that parallels our modern day world.

Now here we go! That’s more like it. Are you sure you’re ready for the answer? Absolutely! I am an observer by nature, a listener. And what I have observed and been awoken to, especially since 9/11, is a world that has been overtaken by lies from the elite. Now this isn’t necessarily something new, but the scale and magnitude of such deception and the means by which they are willing to go to maintain control certainly is. Rogue elements within our government, usually part of the military industrial complex or financial system, have within the past sixty years, since JFK, orchestrated a coup over the American people. Other similar groups overseas have done so with different means, specifically overwhelming debt creation such as what is going on in Greece. The result is a massive population that is being steered and milked and driven into the ground by a very, very, select few. We are being lied to on a grand scale. Our financial system is collapsing, the dollar is losing its buying power. Wall Street is at record highs but so is the unemployment rate, homeless rate, bankruptcy rate, divorce rate, and violent crime rate. There is a worsening disconnect between these ruling elites and the ‘unwashed,’ and I believe we are coming to a very critical point in time where these two bodies are going to collide.

This is how tyrannies are formed, not overnight, but through deceit and manipulation. Patiently. And one of these techniques is what’s called a “false flag” operation. This is taught in military handbooks as a way to control, distract, and confuse the enemy into believing a person or group is responsible for an act when in reality it is another. Hitler did this in 1933 by burning down the Reichstag building and blaming it on the Communists, thus giving rise to the Nazi party in Germany and solidifying his control.

More recently, in 1962, the US Joint Chiefs secretly authorized Operation Northwoods as a way to bring the US into war with Cuba. The head of every branch of the US Armed Forces gave written approval to sink US ships, shoot down commercial aircraft and blow up buildings in Washington DC and Miami and then blame the terrorism on Castro. It is only through the denial by then President Kennedy that this plan was stopped. Ironically, Kennedy was then assassinated the next year by who the elite called a “Cuban sympathizer.”

Now what is even more troubling is the rise in advanced weapons technologies such as the drone program and the NSA spying programs. These weapons of war are now being turned on the populace they were sworn to protect. Under who’s orders? What cause? Security? Who’s? Over 30,000 drones will be in the skies over the US within the next six years. Who are they watching? It’s certainly not Al-Queda. That’s a Washington Times article. That should send chills down your back as the Constitution is rolled over. The question is how far will the public allow this to go? It’s only by waking up to what is going on around us will we not find ourselves under a tyrannical government. It is allowing the tools of tyranny to be available on a massive scale to control and potentially enslave millions of people.

Oh, but I’m an alarmist though, right? We are Americans, we would never do such a thing to our own people. Right? Ask the Japanese Americans who were put in internment camps during WWII or my own ancestors, the Cherokee Indians, who were removed from their own lands and slaughtered in the Trail of Tears. We forget how brutal and indifferent people can be if it is not happening to their immediate circle. And that’s not even touching on 9/11.

So yes, to answer your question. But I was nowhere near as heavy handed in the book as I was just now. We have to get these ideas into the general lexicon of the people because they don’t realize the deception that is taking place. A well informed public is a safer public.

What attracted you to Steampunk?
The overall asthetic appearance of the technology as well as the way it seemed like anyone could build it in their garage if they had the time. It’s partly why it’s taken off like it has in Cosplay at conventions. It’s because it is buildable by everyday Joes out there! It’s the common man’s jetpack.

How did the idea for The Kingdom of Vosh develop?Through my artwork mainly. I was the artist throughout the book, even creating the cover back in 1999. I would imagine these characters and how they would appear and then sit down and draw them. Stories began to swirl and eventually a plot materialized. It was my intention to bring it to life as a graphic novel but I settled on just an ordinary novel with my artwork before each chapter.

Has music ever helped you in your writing, or influenced your writing in any way? And what kind of music works best for Steampunk?

I wrote The Kingdom of Vosh while listening to movie soundtracks, namely Daft Punk’s Tron soundtrack and the Dark Knight’s soundtrack. It was that techno-funk, pulsating groove that got me into the world. Metal clanking and thumping in rhythm, then some crazy techno whir as it pulsated with the beat, it seemed to fit the genre well.

About

Scott M. Sandridge’s first short story, “Treecutter,” was published in The Sword Review in July 2005. Since then, he’s gone on to publish more short stories, and write reviews for Tangent Online, Withersin, and The Fix. He has also been a columnist for the Double-Edged Publishing webzines, a Submissions Editor for Ray Gun Revival, and the Managing Editor of Fear and Trembling. He is currently an editor for Seventh Star Press and Loconeal Publishing.

His flash fiction story, “Sleep Paralysis”, was a Top Ten Finisher in the 2008 P&E Readers Poll for Best Short Story – Horror.

His short stories have appeared in various online magazines and print anthologies, including Silver Blade, Every Day Fiction, Morpheus Tales: Dark Sorcery Special Edition, and anthologies from Pill Hill Press, Wicked East Press, and Seventh Star Press.

The Damn Dislcaimer

I do not get paid to give good reviews.
I do not get paid to give reviews, period.
There are no expectations from anyone with regards to how a review turns out. I write what I mean.
Go screw yourself, FTC.